


Legion

by shinyfire



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, Gothic, Past Relationship(s), Period Typical Attitudes, inaccurate representation of mental illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:34:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28883955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinyfire/pseuds/shinyfire
Summary: The daroga is almost drowned by the siren.But who, he would like to know, is 'Erik'?
Relationships: Erik | Phantom of the Opera & The Persian
Comments: 32
Kudos: 24
Collections: Genuary 2021





	Legion

**Author's Note:**

> The paragraphs in italics at the beginning and end are taken directly from the de Mattos translation of Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera. The second and third paragraphs are re-writes of Leroux.
> 
> Big thank you to [paperandsong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperandsong/pseuds/paperandsong) for reading this first and her thoughtful suggestions.

_I had no sooner put off from the bank than the silence amid which I floated on the water was disturbed by a sort of whispered singing that hovered all around me. It was half breath, half music; it rose softly from the waters of the lake; and I was surrounded by it through I knew not what artifice. It followed me, moved with me and was so soft that it did not alarm me. On the contrary, in my longing to approach the source of that sweet and enticing harmony, I leaned out of my little boat over the water, for there was no doubt in my mind that the singing came from the water itself. By this time, I was alone in the boat in the middle of the lake; the voice—for it was now distinctly a voice—was beside me, on the water. I leaned over, leaned still farther._

At the back of my mind, I knew that this extraordinary sound could not possibly come from a Siren; I knew that it must have something to do with Erik - and that both he and the Siren would have the same desire to confuse the unsuspecting traveller upon the glassy lake. But its beauty was quite overwhelming to my senses and gave one the strong impression that the song was indeed being sung by a very beautiful and bewitching woman. And so, not wanting to discover the true source of the sound, but simply to enjoy it more fully, I continued to lean over the side of the boat, until I very nearly toppled out.

Suddenly two powerful arms rose up from the depths of the lake, the Siren of my mind transformed into a terrible beast, dragging me down beneath the waters with a force I was utterly unable to resist. I know I would certainly have been drowned had I had not cried out and he had recognised me by my cry. His aggression promptly ceased and he swam with me to the shore - for I was quite unable to swim being half drowned and with the shock of being taken in such a way - and he laid me gently, almost tenderly, upon the bank.

_"How imprudent you are!" he said, as he stood before me, dripping with water. "Why try to enter my house? I never invited you! I don't want you there, nor anybody! Did you save my life only to make it unbearable to me? However great the service you rendered him, Erik may end by forgetting it; and you know that nothing can restrain Erik, not even Erik himself."_

I looked at him with incredulity and coughed up some lake water, before managing to say, “Who is this ‘Erik’ that you speak of? As if he is _not_ _you_? Do not try to confound me or absolve yourself! ‘ _Nothing can restrain Erik, not even Erik himself?’_ Erik is you! You are Erik!”

I had by now brought myself up and was sitting on the bank, and was, like Erik, was dripping with water. He crouched down before me, his long limbs spider-like, sticking out at all angles. I could see the faint outline of his flesh beneath his wet shirt and I remembered how long it had been since I had last seen him in such a revealing state. Behind his mask, his yellow eyes reflected the light from the lamp that he had taken from the boat. He ran the Siren’s reed over and through his fingers as if it was the sail of a windmill. He appeared to be deep in thought.

At last, he spoke. “Ah, you see, my dear daroga, we both know only too well that _Erik_ has done a great many terrible things … things _I_ prefer to forget. He is capable of a great many terrible things even now… even in this very moment.” He spoke lightly, in a sing-song voice. “But he is not here now. And that is a very good thing for us both! It is _I_ who speaks to you. That is why your life was saved. I saved it! Not _he_. Not Erik … _he_ would have pulled you down to the very depths of the lake.” His ugly mouth twisted into a grin. He reminded me very much of a boy telling me of his good deeds to try to win my approval.

I looked at him with stupefaction.

“What…what are you saying Erik? He... _Erik_...is not here now? This is madness!”

He drew himself a little closer so that he was on his knees before me, his voice soft. “Madness you say, daroga…but it is the sanest thing I have ever told you…Indeed, Erik is not here now. He has gone…for the time being…and left you alone with me…you really don’t know how lucky you are…”

I spoke recklessly, “you cannot talk about this Erik as if he is not _you._ You respond to the name Erik! _Erik’s_ hands were pulling me under! They are your hands!”

Erik – for that is to whom I believed I was talking – shook his head a little. He was suddenly sombre. “How innocent you are, daroga. I know that you think I am like a child but it is you, so limited in your comprehension, who is the real child. How can you not have noticed? Erik… _he_ is behind all of this! Have I really committed murders?

He had come very close to me now, crawling. I could smell his breath, feel its warmth upon my cold skin. As quietly as he had spoken to me, I said, “Who, then, are _you_ …if you are not Erik?” I had begun to shiver almost uncontrollably with the cold and with the knowledge that he was much further gone than I had previously thought.

The man, ‘ _Erik who said he was not Erik_ ’, sat back on his heels. He was surprisingly limber for his age, and extended his long body upwards, arms out wide. His voice was suddenly loud, as if he were an actor making declamations upon a stage. “Daroga, I have no name. I forgot it long ago. I do not even know if ever I had a name. How sad it is. You should weep for me, daroga, not _Erik_. I have always been here. He has forced me to watch him...his foul murders, his lust for the girl...he watches her you know; he takes himself in his hands behind her mirror…and he pleasures himself…I know this because when _I_ return, my hands are wet, wet with the spill of his terrible lust. Erik is a monster!”

Again, I was stunned again into silence. My heavy breath echoed around the cavern. He seated himself next to me, dog-like, leaning towards me, closer closer, an intimacy the likes of which we had not shared for many years. "Dear daroga, I remember the very hour of his birth. When Erik…when _he_ took the reins...so to speak. You were there too, did you know?”

“I did not know.” I whispered.

He raised his hand up to my chest and prodded me with his bony finger. “It could be said, well, _I say it_ , that you…are Erik’s father.” He dug his finger harder into my chest and watched for my reaction. I made none, scarcely able to comprehend the horror of what he was saying. He continued, his voice echoing around the cavern, “Erik was born in the courts of Mazandaran! You are his father; _she_ is his mother. You who brought your cock to her pussy!”

“She?” I struggled to keep my voice from quavering. I am not a cowardly man, but this display of his had deeply unnerved me, like almost nothing else in my career had done before.

“Do not play the fool with me, daroga, you are cleverer than that! The Little Sultana! The _things_ she wanted done!” He gasped, still acting. “ _I_ could never have satisfied her perversity, oh no, not me...What do I know of the art of death? I am but a mere magician...But _Erik…_ he was born in the nick of time…and how he relished in pleasing her…how he wanted to…how he loved to show her his skills with death…he loved to kill just as much as she loved to watch. Oh, the watcher and the watched. What a merry dance they led!”

He stood up suddenly. “I would come back to such scenes of devastation. The blood of the womb, the blood of his birth. He bathed in blood, was born in it, he revelled in it. Oh how Erik sang at the sight of all that blood, his blood, their blood, mingled. And with the punjab lasso - o, how he could bring death upon his victims, like that” He snapped his fingers. “So merciful, he could be. When he wanted to be. Which was _rarely._ ” He gave a nasty laugh and crossed his arms. He continued as if he were a fish-wife gossiping after the catch, his voice light. “Erik is a terrible man. Hardly a man, in my opinion. As we have established so well: he is a monster.”

He paused and looked at me intensely and tilted his head to one side, considering. “It is a jolly good thing that Erik is still not here, daroga! He would never have countenanced your presence here on his bank.” He reached down, offering me his hand. Mindlessly I took it, his skeleton’s hand icy, and he pulled me to my feet.

“So, my dearest daroga...you think you are protecting the world from Erik…with your snooping and your watching…but he knows your secrets…and remember you are the one he watches - always!”

He walked away towards the front-door of his lakeside house and as I watched him, the foul sin I had committed in bringing him to Persia struck me with a violent force. What had I done to that young man who I had first met so many years ago in the chaos of the Nizhny Novgorod fair? He was no innocent even then, that boy with the voice and hands of a young pagan god, but he was not a murderer, he was not then the grotesque creature that he became. The indelible stain of guilt upon my heart coloured again, as if filled with a rush of blood. It was I who had caused his evil to be unleashed, I who had permitted, even encouraged his perversion.

And again _again_ , that terrible stab of anguish; I should have taken responsibility for my creation, _my lover,_ and had him killed! But I was weak, I let my foolish heart rule, and I could not. I let him go free. What had I done in allowing him to live, to inflict his tortured mind upon others for so long? He was right! I had made him so; I brought him to the place where he was to lose himself so completely to his own base nature. Did I think that by saving his life he would somehow improve himself, somehow remember that he was a member of the human race? It was a vain hope, for in those years that I lost him it was clear that he only embraced his madness and his wickedness ever tighter.

And now he dragged me down with him, as surely as if he had dragged me to the bottom of his lake, for all the failures of my life were bound up with him, all his evil, my doing. I was indeed his father, and he my terrible son, linked by the blood he had spilled, the countless lives he had taken - including mine. He must be stopped!

I was suddenly seized by the desire to enter his house and ran towards the door in the vain hope of doing so when he opened the door. He whipped round, prepared for my assault, and said coldly, "do not presume to follow me, daroga. This house is full of Erik's secrets. It would be a terrible thing for us both if he were to discover you had entered at my behest. Stay there."

I shouted, “Erik’s secrets? What is this? What secrets? What madness is hidden in there?”

He held his hands up in an exaggerated stance of self-defence. I made a move to attack him but he was far quicker and I retreated. We both knew that I would not stand a chance against him.

He gave a little laugh of triumph and said, “Erik’s secrets will remain secret until such time as one is unfortunate enough...or stupid enough...to enter his house, _daroga_. At which point his secrets will very much be brought to the light...in all senses of the word...and whoever discovers Erik’s secrets will know that - as you do so well, I should not need to remind you - that Erik is not a man to suffer fools...least of all _when they are in his house.”_

And so I watched helplessly as he entered, taking the lamp and slamming the door behind him.

Not for the first time and certainly not for the last, I cursed him. How I was to get back to the world above alive. Should I risk using his boat or would that mean certain death? I walked to the water’s edge and began to contemplate the awful prospect of having to swim back to the other side.

But there came a reflection of light upon the water which alerted me to his presence behind me. Was I now in the company of the murderous Erik? I felt a jolt of fear, for as much as I did not believe that there were two men within his one ravaged body, his apparent earnestness in his belief that there was had started to convince me otherwise. In another second he was next to me, holding a lamp in one hand and a cloth in the other. Was this some new trick he intended to play upon me? What could he possibly want with a cloth? Had _Erik_ returned now as he had so grimly predicted?

He held the cloth out to me and said gruffly, “this is for you. Because you are wet.”

And there in that small act, I saw the faint glimmer of the man I had known in Persia; a man who, despite his crimes, was still capable of behaving with humanity. I had known all about his humanity, his needs, his desires and for a time, at least at the beginning, I was able to satisfy them. But I lost him to his bloodlust and now I cannot even be certain that he would remember those times when we were together. I struggled to appraise him through the gloom for the light from his lamp was very meagre. I could smell that he was now wearing clothes that were dry.

He hung the lamp from the prow of the boat. “Were you considering swimming back? You are very brave and very stupid, daroga...the Siren, she is out there in those waters...she would take you into her arms and never let you go, given half a chance...“

At this something within me snapped and I lost all previous self-control. I lurched towards him and managed to grab whatever aspect of his clothing that I could. I pulled him roughly to me and spat into that impassive masked face, “you lie! Do not lie to me! The Siren is you! Erik is you! Have you taken leave of your senses? You are all one!” I heard my voice break with emotion.

And then, despite my rage, I had the sudden fear that my outburst would be punished by him. I withdrew, fully expecting to be struck or attacked about the neck. Instead he caught hold of my wrists and held them in front of him, his grip firm. It dawned on me that he was holding my arms for the sole purpose of feeling them, my warm skin and bone in his deathly hands. I felt his thumbs gently caress my wrists. We remained in this strange position for longer than was reasonable, as he stared intensely at me, his yellow eyes burning. I felt almost as if there were some old longing there, some desire to consume me. Again; our odd, illicit intimacy. And then, as if disgusted with himself or with me, I could not tell, he flung my arms down.

He walked towards the boat and said, “Get in daroga, I do not wish to be in your presence for any longer than is necessary to preserve your meddlesome life.”

I did as he bade and as I stepped in he held it steady for me, curiously chivalrous. He pushed us away from the bank powerfully, and settled himself down to row, manoeuvering the boat quickly and expertly.

As he rowed, he turned away from me and stared out at the lake. “You know not of what you speak, daroga. Those Tonkin pirates taught me their tricks, but that Siren, she followed me here; she comes upon me like a spirit, when fools such as you try to cross my lake. I laughed with those pirates, they taught me many things, but they cursed me with her.”

And then with great trepidation I asked him the question that was growing ever more urgent in my mind. “How many of you are there? There is Erik, there is the Siren. Who else resides within your...body?”

He chuckled softly at this. “You have asked me my name... _They_ could say, ‘ _our name is Legion, for we are many’_ , but there are no pigs down here in which to drown themselves...So they live on, a torment to me, doing the things I would _never_ do.” The mocking tone returned to his voice. “Perhaps you do not understand this talk of pigs...no matter...there are many of them within me; Erik, Siren, Angel of music...and of death, for the sake of completeness; _Op-er-a-ghost_. Each one a burden...each one _ripe_ with their own corruption!” And then with great violence he shouted into the darkness another of his names I remember so well; “Most Highly Favoured One of the Little Sultana!”

His terrible voice rang around the cavern. We listened to its dying echoes. I felt a deeper chill envelop me from the inside out. But the cold I felt was not because of the water in my clothes but because I now knew I was in the presence of one who was entirely unhinged from the material fact of reality. Not even in the later days of his time in Persia had I witnessed this depth of madness, this depravity. Even when the man seemed utterly lost in the ruthless pursuit of blood, he still appeared to have control of his mind, he still spoke as if he were one person. I am no alienist and I cannot offer any rational explanation for his bizarre assertions; it seemed as if he considered many people resided within his accursed body, people who seemed to have wills and minds of their own, over which he considered he had no influence.

At length he spoke quietly, sadly, “when have I ever been truly favoured by a woman? Loved for myself?”

Here was a further blow. Of course he had forgotten those nights in Mazandaran. I could provide him with no consolation; not now nor, it seemed, had I ever done so.

In the darkness, so close to him in the boat, I could sense him vibrate with a strange kind of ecstasy, an ecstasy that I had witnessed so often when with him in the presence of the Little Sultana. Hearing the tiredness and sadness in voice I knew then that I was in very great danger, for I recalled that when he sounded at his most tired and most sad, that he did his most terrible deeds. I was being dragged down again - not into the water of the lake but into the dark waters of his unsettled mind; now I truly feared the return of Erik.

We spent the rest of the journey in silence and when we arrived at the far side, he leapt out ahead of me, again steadying the boat as if I were an old man and he was cautious of my health. Our silence continued as we stood on the bank, wordless in the wake of his confessions. Despite my fear, I thought of him returning to that lonely darkness in such contrast to my world of light and people with sadness, and I felt a terrible, blasphemous pity for him - my useless pity that had saved his life, and opened the door to so much more destruction. I resolved that I would redouble my efforts to stop Erik, to atone for my sins of omission, my weakness. I could not wait to be away from him, his awful madness, back up to the light where rationality and sanity rule.

He was pressing the palms of his hands up against the temples of his dreadful face. He gave a strangled cry, then and flung himself upon me with a great laugh.

“I am full of tricks, daroga, you hardly know whether to believe me or not! Tricks of the mind, tricks of the hand, tricks of the voice! You hardly know to whom you have been talking! You should simply call me trickster and be done with it! Do you like my tricks! Did you like my trick with the reed, did you, did you?”

This sudden change of temperament was shocking and, as he knew, I could not be sure in whose presence I was in. I decided to humour him, and do my best to prevent further evil. I spoke quickly.

_"It's a trick that nearly killed me!" I said. "And it may have been fatal to others! You know what you promised me, Erik? No more murders!"_

_"Have I really committed murders?" he asked, putting on his most amiable air._


End file.
